Often the concern had been raised that owing to the 'convenience, affordability, and broad reach of social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, terrorist groups have increasingly used social media to further their goals and spread their message'.

This
too had become a menace and the attempts were made by various
governments and agencies to thwart the use of social media use by
terrorist organizations, but it had been ineffective measure.

In
Focus

However,
now, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube, have joined hands to
forge an anti-terror partnership to thwart the spread of extremist
content online.

Accordingly,
the four internet companies have formed the "Global Internet Forum
to Counter Terrorism" to enable the on-line hosted consumer
services hostile to terrorists and violent extremists, reported the
media. It is being hoped this partnership of the technology majors
would help to prevent effectively the use of social platforms to
promote or spread extremist views.

According
to a joint statement by the four technology giants posted on
Twitter's policy blog, the spread of terrorism and violent extremism
was a pressing global problem and a critical challenge for all. "We
believe that by working together, sharing the best technological and
operational elements of our individual efforts, we can have a greater
impact on the threat of terrorist content online," stated the blog.

According
to a study by Gabriel Weimann of the University of Haifa, it has been
found that almost 90 per
cent
of organized terrorism on the internet takes place via social media
platforms like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and internet forums to
spread terrorism promoting messages, recruit members and gather
intelligence. In this light, the launch of "Global Internet Forum
to Counter Terrorism" is a welcome step, it is being felt.